Our feathered friends are actively amorous

Couples are said to coo to one another or be lovely dovey, but have you ever wondered where amorous avian references come from? 

Doves have been symbols of deep and abiding love since there have been symbols. It was said that doves drew Aphrodite’s (goddess of love) chariot across the heavens, and that when Orion attempted to break into the home of the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione, the Pleiades, she turned the daughters into doves so they could flee the hunter. Zeus transformed the fleeing doves into stars and placed them in heaven. One Christian gospel tells of a dove alighting on Joseph’s staff thus anointing him as Mary’s husband, and in Hebrew teachings the dove and/or pigeon was the only bird pure enough to be offered for sacrifice.

Shakespeare and other Renaissance writers paid tribute to the dove as the loving and devoted partner of the mythical phoenix.

In “The Phoenix and the Turtle” (turtle referring to turtle dove), Shakespeare wrote:

“So they lov'd, as love in twain

Had the essence but in one;

Two distincts, division none:

Number there in love was slain.

Hearts remote, yet not asunder;

Distance, and no space was seen

'Twixt the turtle and his queen;

But in them it were a wonder.

So between them love did shine,

That the turtle saw his right

Flaming in the phoenix' sight:

Either was the other's mine.”

The dove’s piety and devotion to its mate, like all good fables, has some basis in the real world. Doves of all species and their close cousins the pigeons in the family Columbidae are generally thought of as monogamous.  

Mourning doves are the most common dove in the Smoky Mountain region. The mourning dove is a luxurious purplish-tan overall with black spots on its wings and black borders to its wings and tail. Its head and nape have a slate-ish hue and the belly is buff colored.

According to Fred Alsop, an avid birder, field guide author, ornithologist and professor at East Tennessee State University, mourning doves, so named for their “mournful” cooing, are socially monogamous like 95 percent of all bird species. As mated pairs, they share in the duties of nest building, incubating and feeding and caring for the young. Mourning doves feed just hatched chicks “crop milk.”  Not all birds have a crop, which is usually pronounced “craw.”  The crop is a muscular pouch located near the throat used to store food. Crop milk is an extremely nutritious secretion and contains more protein and fat than is found in either cow or human milk. These doves are the only North American species to have been found nesting somewhere in the U.S. during every month of the year.

But when it comes to mourning doves being genetically monogamous, “Don’t count on it!” said Alsop, who has been contracted by the University of Tennessee Press to publish the definitive state bird book, Birds of Tennessee. He noted that, “More than 85 percent of those species that have been subjected to DNA paternity studies have been found to be sexually polygamous.” 

Now your lover has, hopefully, evolved beyond this point, but from a strictly biological view, according to Alsop, “Male birds can maximize their reproductive output by fertilizing as many eggs as possible and he may use some of the breeding period when his mate is incubating eggs, feeding young, or otherwise distracted to seek mating with other females.  Likewise, not all males are of similar genetic quality and females paired with poorer quality males may seek EPCs  [extra pair-copulations] that may secure the genes of better males for their offspring.” A 2005 study of a captive colony of mourning doves did DNA profiles on 43 chicks. Only four of those chicks appeared to be the result of EPC. 

Now that study didn’t record how many of those adult doves held political office but the results have a lot to say about the fidelity of mourning doves in the wild.